SCREENGRAB FROM SARA DUTERTE’S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
DAVAO CITY—Despite her Instagram post urging Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to run for president and showing a signed copy of her own certificate of candidacy for mayor, Sara Duterte did not file a COC at the Commission on Elections here before the deadline on Friday, gravely disappointing a crowd of supporters and media who waited up to the last hour.
READ: Duterte won’t run; ‘Give the presidency to the one who wants it’
As the 5 p.m. deadline struck, neither Sara nor her father had shown up, dousing hopes the elder Duterte would withdraw his COC for city mayor and instead seek the presidency.
Rody Duterte later explained in a radio interview that his daughter’s Instagram post where she showed off her shaved head was a sarcastic dig, and not an endorsement of a run for president.
READ: TIMELINE: Rodrigo Duterte
Duterte told reporters late Thursday he was not going to Manila the following day to file candidacy papers for president. “Do not expect me to go to Manila,” he had said.
Speculation heightened when Sara posted on Instagram a photo of her signed COC, and telling her father she was waiting for him.
Sara wrote: “Tandaan ninyo ang araw na ito, wala kaming pera, wala kaming makinarya (Remember this day, we don’t have money, we don’t have the machinery),” hashtagging the groups pushing her father to run.
The elder Duterte said his daughter’s post should be seen as sarcasm and not as an endorsement for his run.
He said he was definitely not running for president.